Sixteen veteran teachers in Lawrence Public Schools could soon be fired for not performing to school district standards.

The teachers -- all of them with more than three years' experience who have attained professional status -- recently received notification that they face termination after failing a rigorous teacher review process aimed at improving the quality of classroom instruction in the city's troubled education system, Superintendent/Receiver Jeffrey C. Riley told the Eagle Tribune

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"It's rare for professional status teachers to lose their jobs. But at the end of the day, this is not an employment agency, and this has got to be about kids first. This is not teacher bashing, but we are going to hold everyone accountable," Riley said. "I want to be clear: the reality is there are many good teachers in the district. We have about 900 teachers and the majority of people are doing the right thing. This is also one of the lowest performing school districts in the state, and we need to look closely at everyone and raise expectations — and I mean everyone."

Riley, now on the job about 4 1/2 months, began an aggressive review of teachers in late March as part of a major turnaround process that he's overseeing since the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education declared Lawrence Public Schools a Level 5 "chronically under performing" school district last November.

Initially, school officials identified 58 "teachers of concern" because of principal assessment, their work history or because their classroom performance raised concerns about their teaching capabilities. A team of classroom evaluators — retired school superintendents from outside the city working under the direction of Dale R. Libkin, the district's assistant superintendent of teacher effectiveness — cleared 10 teachers after an initial observation process.

Thirteen teachers were put on an improvement plan, 12 others resigned, six retired and one teacher who is on leave is pending a review, according to Riley. Any teachers who are fired do have a right to appeal.

Lawrence Teachers Union President Frank McLaughlin was brief in his reaction to the pending termination of the 16 teachers.

"As of today, no teachers have been terminated. We will be watching each individual's case closely in the days ahead because we believe that the process of turning around the Lawrence Public Schools must be good for students and fair to teachers," McLaughlin said.

Riley noted that the 16 terminations would be drastic action for a district in which only two teachers with professional status were terminated last year.

"We wanted to be fair, but also hold people accountable. Of the 58 people we initially identified, there were 30 or so people we focused on. Some people chose to resign rather than go through this process. Some people chose to retire rather than go through this process," he said. "Certainly, some of those people would have not been asked back. But I can't talk about individuals.

"The thing that I thought was most fair about the process was we brought in outside urban experts who provided an objective observation of the teachers so no one could say, 'This principal doesn't like me.' We gave people professional development along the way. We paid for coaches. We gave everybody an opportunity to succeed," he said.